


Tense

by threewalls



Series: Schirra [30]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: 707 OV, Comfort, F/M, Guilt, Insomnia, Interspecies, Mid-Game, Rabanastre, Sharing a Bed, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-16
Updated: 2007-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>"You have not seen me in such a rage."</cite></p><p>Post-Shiva.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tense

**Author's Note:**

> "I always knew Fran didn’t take well to being tied up. I just never knew how much."  
> Balthier

Their lodgings are not large, or well-furnished, but they had stayed in far worse. Balthier had sneered at the four walls, and kicked at the side-table, and cast cleansing spells over the mattress before falling onto it. He has been tightly-wound for many days, his shoulders, his jaw held like they have healed badly, and Fran has read that message rather than the few, sharp words he has spoken.

The princess lies on a cot in the main room. Basch sits further along, perhaps where Fran last saw him with view of the one window and the one door. She can hear the difference in their breathing-- that the girl sleeps and he does not-- even here in a city, but Rabanastre is hushed now, as it has not been in all her memory.

Fran does not sleep.

So many years before, when she still warded the Wood, she had twice been honoured to manifest its will. The Mist had grown thick, smothering her spirit to its core, her limbs moving as the Wood willed. But to be overtaken by the Dawn Shard was not so. The Wood had not such hunger, such anger, such rage... she had been nothing, empty and envious, and blind.

Balthier lies on the other side of the bed, the left side, his side, and the tension of his body stretches along the sheets to pull at her through all the space between them.

"You have not seen me in such a rage."

Balthier makes a hume noise that means nothing, he is listening, nothing more. He turns onto his side, facing her direction. Fran can smell the sourness of night, of the Lowtown moonshine he drank earlier, on his breath.

"You were not afraid."

"When have I been frightened of danger?" There is sleepy, familiar, bravado in his voice, but not challenge.

Fran feels him moving, the shift-tilt of mattress, but it still surprises her when Balthier's hand does not reach for her breast, or her hip, but touches only her hand, grasps her fingers. Four days ago, she raked the flesh of men under her nails. She can still taste the scent of their blood. Humes are fragile.

"Rabid animals are dangerous."

Fran resents those that believe viera possess some fighting instinct, a violence in their blood. She fights by expertise and practice; she is a warrior, not a beast, or so she tells herself when others demur in whispers that they do not know she can hear.

"You're not an animal," Balthier says, and his hand tightens around hers. "You're a Fran."

He moves again, and she feels the press of his leg, warm against her own. Fran knows this, pulls their linked hands over her body, rolls with the movement. He sets his bent knees behind her own, his lips against her shoulder blade. She feels his body loosen, but it does not become loose, not even with sleep when it comes.

Fran sleeps.


End file.
